Reading the Bible 'Literally'

Critical to debates over "the historical Adam" are theological motifs such as Christ as "the second Adam." These lose their meaning, many evangelicals argue, if Genesis isn't read literally.

But an alarm should sound whenever the word "literal" is used in this context, whether as a badge of pride ("I just believe in reading the Bible literally") or as a hint that low-browed fundamentalists are lurking nearby. No one—no one—reads the Bible literally. But some readers are more attentive, more faithful, more imaginative and more persuasive than others.

I think great caution is in order when it comes to revising views about Adam based on the latest findings of science. Truly, I've been reading the literature and the field of genetics and DNA studies is hardly settled. It seems the more we know the less we understand how these things work. I am fine with Adam, and Christ, the Second Adam. How many more Adams do we need?

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Genetics tells us nothing about God's ability to create a living creature from nothing in the wink of an eye. Consider, for instance, that instead of commanding fish to swim from all over the Sea of Gallilee, timing each one's start so that Peter's net would be filled by fish arrive simultaneously from every part of the lake, He just created a netful of fish de novo when Peter dropped it in the water.

We are talking about a God who can feed 5,000 men (plus women and children) with five loaves and two fish, after all.

So, why can He not create the First Man when and where He wishes, no matter what man-like (but not human) creatures came before? There were giants in the Earth in those days, after all....

"Mr. Schneider has concluded that human ancestry can't be traced to a single couple, the Adam and Eve of the Genesis account."

He's probably right in that, if he means that it can't scientifically be traced back, because the main scientific tool for doing that is genetics. Genetics has traced our ancestry back to a common female ancestor, Mitachondrial Eve, but the attempt to trace back to a corresponding Adam has hit a brick wall in the much later common male ancestor, Y-Chromosomal Adam (obviuosly misnamed). All male ancetors behind him are hidden from view genetically.

But the mildly literate reader of the Bible, or of some other ancient pagan legends, might be able to see an identity for this later male ancestor, a descendant of the primordial woman, who in his day became the only patriarch with a surviving line of descent, all other male lines being...extinguished somehow.

But without the omnipotent guide of Science how can we Know, uh, who that man might have been?